Help?
by AIs4Awsome
Summary: a sarcastic failed cheerleader is dumped by her boyfriend. she meets a strange boy in a bathroom at a restaurant...i suck at summeries please read
1. Chapter 1

**authors note: read, review, etc etc. this is my first fanfiction i guess this story is pretty much if u had to make me sit down and right down a paranormal/drama/romance this would probably be it. so yeah PLEASE REVIEW please andthank yooouuu...i have A LOT more already written but just wanna get some reviews to know some people are reading/want more**

Chapter One

The first thing I did was take a pair of scissors to my hair.

Snip, snip, snip.

It looked good, considering I didn't have any help with the back. The hair –which used to graze the middle of my back - was now cut close to the nape of my neck. Definitely needed some layering though. I picked up the scissors again. You never really realize just how long your hair is till you are able to fill an entire garbage can with it. There was a good three feet of hair in there. Blonde, except for the roots. My hair is naturally a dark brown color. My mom used to call it a rich mocha brown with this kind of sickening pride like, Smell me, I have a kid with coffee colored hair.

To say she wasn't very happy when I started dying it blonde last April is a bit of an understatement. Jason had said I look better as a blonde.

When I was finally finished with the scissors, I took a good, long look in the bathroom mirror, scrutinizing what I had done. I had to admit, it didn't look half as bad as I thought it would. It was really short and layered, with long spiky bangs to balance it out. It was a major difference. I was pleased

From April of junior year to February of senior year, Jason had been drawing a picture of me, but everything was in the wrong place. At least, that's how it felt. When he was drunk at parties, Jason would squeeze my skinny butt and make remarks about my "big ass". He would call me sweet when I was trying to sound mad. He found it amusing to introduce me as "Em, my girlfriend who has no sense of humor." But my fellow cheer leading friends would say I was the funny one.

He met my family and found them "perfectly nice" and "too sentimental" when it's blatantly obvious that both my parents were complete hicks and my older brother was a lazy, smart ass university drop out with the mentality of a sock monkey.

If Jason described me to you, you would never have known it was me. The thing is, after almost exactly one school year of going out with Jason, I started to think that maybe his picture was right and mine was wrong. And then he broke up with me a three weeks before the new semester, and I didn't have a picture at all.

I'm totally not going to lie. The look on Mom's face when she sees me new haircut is a mind-boggling thing to behold.

"Emma -" she says, covering her mouth with one hand.

"Oh my…I didn't - I thought you'd -" She stops, her car keys slipping from her fingers to the black and white tiled kitchen floor.

"Time for a change." I say.

I know what she's thinking. She is thinking I'm taking the Jason break up way too hard and acting like a huge drama queen and I'm doing stupid pointless shit with my hair to get attention or sympathy or whatever. It's such a waste of breath for Mom to say nice things to me, because I can always tell what she's thinking and it's never the same as what she says.

"Yes. A change." She picks up her car keys from the floor and doesn't look at me. "You have such a beautiful face; you look great with short hair." Obviously I had not gone far enough.

"Holy shit!" Jake bursts out when I get in the car.

"Black hair! Em's a Goth!"

"Jake, don't swear. Did you buckle your seat belt?"

"Mom, did you see what Em did to her hair?"

"Yes, Jake, did you buckle?"

Jake rolls his eyes at Mom's nagging.

Twenty years old and the loser can't even be bothered to buckle his seat belt.

"If we're in a head on collision and you die I'm taking your room." I mutter.

"Go to hell, brat." he snaps.

"Don't call your sister a brat." Mom says, checking her already perfectly lined lips in the rearview mirror. Like he hasn't already been calling me brat since I was seven.

Jake ignores Mom.

"Do you seriously think Jason is going to take you back with that hair cut? You look like a lesbian. And not even a hot lesbian. You look like the one that wears the pants in the relationship - if you know what I mean. I don't think Jason's really into - "

"Mom!"

"What, Em?"

As if she didn't know.

"Can't you tell Jake to get a job or something and stop free loading off of you and Dad? And then maybe he'll finally move the hell out."

Mom sighs and says nothing. Instead, she pulls the ugly as fuck family minivan out of the driveway and onto the road.

"FYI, I have a job." Jake hisses.

I roll my eyes. "Working on the farm for Dad doesn't count, jerk off."

"I'm getting paid aren't I? That counts as a job. And at least I have a job, Brat."

I kick the back of the passenger seat knowing it's one of those things that seriously pisses off Jake. I give it another kick, and another. I don't have to wait long to get a reaction from him.

"I swear to God, Em, if you don't fucking stop kicking the seat I'm going to -"

"Jacob, I said don't swear," Mom snaps "and Emma stop kicking the seat. You're giving me a head ache."

I act like I don't hear and go on kicking the back of the seat.

Clearly this would be the longest trip to school ever.

I pause to run my hand over my blue-black, almost-but-not-quite naked hair. Time for a change.

That's what Jason had said to me three weeks ago.

"Time for a change, Em." He wasn't looking at me; he was looking at the vending machine that stands between the locker room entrances by the gym, debating whether or not to risk Coach Payne's wrath and buy a candy bar. Coach Payne has this uber strict rule barring the football players from gaining any weight during the season, unless of course, they're gaining it in muscle.

Just get the M&M's. I thought as I watched him. You always get those. Don't look around for something better or the M&M's will feel bad.

He jingled some loose change in his hand.

"You know, I'm going to football camp for, like, practically all of March Break and then the whole summer."

"Yeah, I know." I said. Some part of me understood right away where this was headed but I dumbly thought I could fight it. "You'll have a great time."

Jason is smart and good at everything, especially football.

"And we're starting university in the Fall." He said. As if I'd forgotten. He gave me a sideways glance. "At least, I am."

I'd decided last month to take a year off after graduation. Jason had been more than a little disgusted when he'd found out that I still had not the slightest clue of what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go or who I wanted to be. The way I figured it, I'd take a year to find myself or whatever before heading off to university.

"Look, they restocked the Kit Kat bars." I said. If I acted like I didn't get it, I could buy myself some time. Stall a bit, play dumb, grab another precious thirty or so seconds of happiness before my perfect world comes crashing down on me.

"Don't you understand what I'm saying?" Jason turned away from the vending machine and started talking louder, like I was suddenly rendered deaf or retarded. "There's only a few months left of high school left before graduation and then I'm going to be away all summer. In the fall I'll be starting at Boston University. The thing is, I think we both want different things and I think we both could use a change."

Jason always knew what was best for me.

"I don't want a change." My voice sounded small.

But he kept talking, as if I hadn't said anything.

"It was fun going out with you. We had some fun, right? You'll have a great couple of months left of high school and a great summer, Em. You'll stay here and sort your shit or whatever."

I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking I was too boring, too safe, too…virginal for him. I knew from the way he's pressured me ever since junior year that he'd wanted to lose his v-card to me before heading off to university. After a nearly a whole year of getting pretty much nothing, he knew I wasn't going to be the girl he'd lose it to. Every time he'd tried I was either not ready to take that step, or I had my period or I wasn't on the pill or my parents were in the other room or Violet might walk in on us or oh look, there's a documentary on about hamster breeding in Alaska. Excuses. He was done with excuses.

Jason wanted some gorgeous, bleach blonde, been there, done that, ambitious varsity cheer leading captain who would worship his every move; not some sarcastic, fake blonde, small town, sub-par high school cheer leader who didn't know what the hell she was going to do with her life.

It's not like he hadn't tried to turn me into that. He always liked pulling strings from behind the scenes. He was always concerned with people "images". He would tell me my "image" needed work. I never really knew what he meant by it, except that obviously he was somehow disappointed in me. It had been his idea to dye my hair blonde, so I'd fit the classic high school cheerleader/popular star football player's girlfriend image. More or less, it was a stereo type that, try as I might, I could never quite fit into.

I was always too sarcastic, not perky enough, too unfocused about school and my future, too distracted or unmotivated to fully dedicate myself to cheer leading and being the perfect perky blonde trophy girlfriend Jason had always wanted.

Time for a change, Jason was saying. But I knew what he was really thinking was, I tried to make you into the perfect girlfriend, one that I'd be proud of, but it didn't work. I guess you just don't have what it takes.

To the rest of the small town of Promise, Massachusetts, three weeks had passed since the breakup, but in my own personal space continuum I was still standing there in the gym, watching Jason walk away from the vending machine while his unspoken words took up permanent residence in my brain

I did my best but you just couldn't cut it, Em. That's why it's time for a change.

It's hard to hear anything else.

Case in point: Jake is shouting at me to stop kicking his goddamn seat, but I don't hear him at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

The first person at school to approach me about my new hair is none other than my best friend and fellow cheer leader, Maris.

"What the fuck did you do to your hair?" Maris snaps, grabbing my arm and literally dragging me into the second floor girl's bathroom minutes before the first bell.

The bathroom reeks of cheap floral perfume, Mr. Clean and the faint yet ever present smell of weed.

"Like it?" I ask, breaking away from her grasp and giving a little twirl.

"You…you…" She tries but fails. "You butchered it." she says finally.

"Well I wouldn't exactly say butchered…but yeah, I changed it."

"Em, why, why, WHY would you do that to your hair? You look like Adam Lambert and not in a good way."

Figures Maris would compare my new look to a gay, emo American Idol winner. Or was he a runner up? Whatever, same diff.

"It's a little drastic, don't you think? I mean, you had all that blonde hair and now -"

"Oh, please." I say with a slightly over the top eye roll. "You sound like my mom. And FYI did you ever consider that, you know, maybe I actually kind of, sort of like it?"

"I liked you better as a blonde."

I scowl, thinking of Jason without meaning to.

"So? I like it and that's what matters, right? Who cares if I do random shit with my hair as long as I like it?"

"I guess so."

But Maris isn't convinced. I can tell by the way she's gaping at my newly dyed head with a combination of doubt and horror. I gotta admit, it's starting to make me uncomfortable.

"You do know you'll probably get kicked off the cheer leading squad when Ms. K sees what you've done to your hair."

"Actually, I was considering quitting anyway."

"What?"

I shrug. "Why not? I only joined 'cause Jason wanted me to and since we're not dating anymore why not just drop the whole cheer leader thing? I think I'm going to go to the office at lunch and ask if I can talk to Ms. K about quitting."

"Are you out of your fucking mind, woman?"

The look on Maris' face is that of total revulsion, like instead of voluntarily quitting the squad, I'd suddenly offered to dump a bucket of black widows over my head. Maris' entire life is cheerleading. No doubt she'd rather chop her own arm off than quit the squad.

Let me tell you a little somethin' somethin' about my good friend Maris. Maris, beautiful Maris, with the long naturally blonde hair, the C38 rack, the big Angelina Jolie lips, the thing for dudes twice her age. She has Cheer Leading Captain/Girlfriend to the School Star Quarterback written all over her. She's not a Big Disappointment, Plain Jane, flannel-and-t-shirt-wearing, straight-edge, potty-mouth bitch chick with the God-awful DIY haircut and dye job like me. Maris didn't have a boyfriend who dumped her two weeks before the first day of second semester.

"Em, you cant quit." She practically moans "We need you on the squad. I need you."

"No, Maris, the squad doesn't need me. I mean, I don't know how I even made the squad in the first place."

And for the record, I'm not being modest. I legit honest-to-Baby-Jesus have no idea how I made the squad. I'm uncoordinated, I have a fear of heights and I suck at following a routine. Sad but true. Seriously. I'm such a huge epic fail of a cheer leader that there were rumors circulating around school that I'd gone so far as to sleep with Coach Payne, just so I could snare a highly coveted position on the squad (which, for the record, is totally untrue. Maris might have a thing for older dudes but that sure as hell doesn't mean that I do too). The only reason why I stuck with the whole cheer leading thing for so long was because of Jason. And that is it, amigo.

"But Em - " Maris pleads, widening her long-lashed baby blues, giving me her best sad, lost puppy dog look. Which, I would like to add, is pretty pathetic.

"Maris, if you're eyes get any bigger you could star in your own Disney movie."

Maris opens her mouth to argue but is cut off when that stupid bitch Courtney bangs the bathroom door open and comes sashaying in. She's doing her Courtney strut with her big boobs sticking out in front of her, wiggling her ass in that way that gets the attention of every dumb shmuck in her wake. What I want to know is; how the hell did she know me and Maris were in this bathroom? There's two bathrooms on every floor and there's three floors which basic math indicates there are a grand total of six Girl's bathrooms in the entire school. Out of all six bathrooms, she just has to walk into this one. Does she have lookouts with text pagers set up everywhere Maris and I go in this school or what?

"Ohmigod, Em! What did you, like, do to your hair?"

The bitch should not be let out during the day. As if her language is not enough indication, there is also the matter of her skank-tastic outfit. Black leather mini skirt (which totally violates the school dress code in every possible way), blinding pink pumps and ripped mass-produced "vintage" Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirt. She looks like she just stepped out of a Ke$ha music video.

"You look, like, emo now."

Okay, I know you probably think I'm being just a little bit harsh with this chick but you don't know the history. I'll give you a quick run down, the spark notes edition, if you will. Pretty much Maris, Courtney, and me used to all be best friends, going way back; all the way back to the time of crayons, afternoon naps and back packs with Disney princess's on them. We were all best friends, that is, until Courtney began to have this totally obvious infatuation with Jason last year, only Jason shut her down 'cause he (for God knows what reason) decided to date me instead. So Courtney somehow got it into her extension filled head that I - and I quote - "stole" Jason from her. She's been a total back stabbing super skank ever since. Me and Maris like to joke that we should get a restraining order against her except Courtney provides too much amusement for us to fully let her out of out of reach just yet. It's like a love-hate thing we have going with her. I hate her for pretty much starting the whole "Em stole Jason from me wahhhh!" rumor last year but love her 'cause let's face it; the bitch can offer up some quality entertainment. Courtney likes to think that she's still one of us since she's into the same music as me and Maris and is also on the cheer leading squad. We've let her be Two and a Half on occasions; she does have a good radar for the best parties and gigs, even if odds are she'll end up getting totally wasted and make a complete fool out of herself by dancing like an idiot by the end of the night. But get Courtney alone and she's normal, at least tolerable, almost but not quiet back to the way she used to be, before she started trying so hard to be Miss Popular Mind-Fuck. Still, it doesn't mean we're considering ever welcoming her back into our twosome as the long lost best friend turned jealous slut. We don't feel too guilty about it because there's only five months of high school left and I can't imagine us ever seeing each other again after our "have a great summer, good luck with college" phony sentiment yearbook finales.

"It was time for a change," I say, glancing at my reflection in the cracked bathroom mirror. I don't know why the fuck everyone is making such a big deal about it. I think my new look suits me.

Courtney shoots me a confused look.

"Is this 'cause of, like, Jason? 'Cause no offense, but I don't really think he's into emo chicks."

As usual, the bitch gets it all wrong.

"Em isn't emo." Maris snaps. "And what she did to her hair has nothing to do with Jason. When you're heart broken, you rent "Titanic", have a good cry and drown your sorrows in a pint of Ben and Jerry's. Not get a hideously unflattering haircut and dye job."

Even as she says it, I'm not convinced that Maris actually believes it.

"Whatever." says Courtney, pulling out a tube of lip gloss from her gigantic faux leather bag. She is somehow able to smear the frosted pink gloss over her pouted lips while saying, "Seems like it has something to do with Jason. I mean, c'mon, it's been, like, three weeks. Are you still not over him yet?"

This is so typical Courtney. The longest relationship she's ever been in lasted a grand total of one month, and technically speaking, it wasn't even really a relationship. They were, for lack of a better term, fuck buddies. Courtney is the absolute last person who should be preaching about the appropriate amount of time it takes to get over one's ex.

"I am over him." I lie.

Maris shoots me one of her patented "yeah whatever, bitch" looks.

"You guys dated for how many months?" she asks.

"Ten."

"Then you're allowed exactly ten days to grieve, one day for every month you went out. After that, you're not allowed to so much as mention his name ever again. So technically speaking, Em, you shouldn't even be talking, let alone thinking about that controlling fuck face right now."

I roll my eyes. "Yeah, 'cause it's just that simple." Now that I think about, she shouldn't really be considered an expert on relationships either seeing as Maris, like Courtney, has never really had an honest-to-God boyfriend before. Just random hook ups with even more random older dudes at parties.

"Maris, when I want good advice about cheer leading or how to expertly fuck the brains out of a married man more than twice my age or maybe how to straighten my hair without completely frying it, I'll come to you okay? But I'm not going to take romantic advice from someone who gets the majority of their Boy-On-Maris action from men who are old enough to be their dad."

"I just think it's time for you to get over the guy." Courtney says, ignoring my jab at Maris and tossing the lip gloss back into her bag before turning and checking out her leather-clad ass in the mirror. Ew. "And doing random crap with your hair isn't going to help the healing process, you know? I think you should just, like, totally forget about him. Cut your losses or whatever. Move on. 'Cause you don't want him to move on before you do 'cause then you'll be all like ohmigod, I haven't moved on yet and he has. And then you'll have to see him with another chick all the time which is gonna be, like, a total bitch. So I think you should just find someone else. Someone whose gonna make you happy, and who'll make you forget all about Jason, even if the guy is just a temp or a rebound. Someone whose not gonna make you dye your hair blonde or force you to have sex 'cause, like, sex is supposed to be this big thing, right? Well, for your first time anyway. I mean, people always say you're supposed to be in love with the person you lose your v-card to and that if they legit love you, then they'll wait and not pressure you and whatever. Sorry, but I don't think Jason really loved you as much as he said he did 'cause if he did he would've waited for you, you know?" She pauses for a second and takes her kohl rimmed eyes off the mirror, away from admiring her ass and says "Was I just, like, totally profound or what?"

I hate to admit it, but I think Courtney may just be onto something. Jason told me he loved me but you don't tell someone that and then tell them that they should start wearing tighter shirts and dye their hair blonde to look hot like their best friends or that they should read a book or something to learn or they should watch porn so they would understand how to give a proper blow job. Courtney's right. I should move on.

"I think you're right." I say slowly. I notice Maris' newly waxed eye brows shoot up in disbelief, as if I actually just admitted that Courtney was right about something. Shocker. "I should move on. I mean, I shouldn't be wasting my time thinking about someone who doesn't give a shit about me, right? That's it. I'm officially finished with Jason."

"'Kay, so it's cool if I go out with him this Friday? 'Cause he asked me if I wanted to see that new Johnny Depp movie with him." Courtney says, casually glancing down at her perfectly manicured nails.

My mouth is still hanging open when she looks back up at me. I can't. Fucking. Speak.

"I take that as a yes." she says, smiling sweetly at my horrified expression.

Just then, as if on cue, the bell rings.

"Oh there's the bell" -as if we already didn't fucking know -"Better get to class. Later, bitches."

All I can do is watch dumbly, jaw still almost hitting the floor, as Courtney turns on the heel of her ugly pink pump and does her Courtney strut right out the bathroom door and into the bustling hall way, her massive bag banging erratically against her leg. Two weeks, three days and twenty-two hours later and he's already with someone else. That someone being Courtney, of all people,

And just as I think fucking skank, Maris says those exact words.


End file.
